Aidat in Turkey: What Service Charges Actually Cover
Every flat inside a Turkish apartment block or managed complex carries a recurring communal charge. It is the ownership cost foreign buyers understand least, argue about most, and discover last. Here is who sets it, what it buys, and what the 2026 amendments changed about how it can rise.
Aidat is not a fee your agent invented. It is a statutory obligation.
When a foreign buyer completes on a Turkish apartment, the purchase costs are usually well understood. The recurring costs are not. Within a month or two of taking the keys, a message arrives from the building or complex management asking for the aidat — and a surprising number of owners have no idea what it is, who decided the amount, or whether they are obliged to pay it.
They are. Aidat is the contribution each owner makes towards the shared running costs of the property — the ortak giderler, or common expenses. It is not a discretionary service the management is selling you. It arises from Turkey’s Condominium Ownership Law (Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu, Law No. 634), which governs how buildings divided into individually owned units are run, and it binds every owner in the building whether they use the facilities or not.
The size of the charge varies enormously, and that variation is the single biggest reason buyers get caught out. A plain apartment block in a residential district with a stairwell, a lift and a caretaker sits at one end. A gated coastal complex with pools, landscaped grounds, a gym, a generator, 24-hour security and a shuttle bus sits at the other. Two apartments with identical purchase prices can carry annual running costs that differ by a multiple, and nothing on the listing will tell you which is which.
This guide explains how the charge is set, what it normally covers, how the 2026 amendments to the law changed the way it can be increased, and what happens when it goes unpaid. For the wider picture of what owning from abroad involves, see our guide to property management in Turkey; for the annual charges levied by the state rather than by your neighbours, see property taxes in Turkey.
Aidat — The Essentials
How the communal charge works in Turkish law
How the amount is decided
Aidat is not set by the developer, the agent or the caretaker. It comes out of an annual budget cycle that the law prescribes, and owners have a vote in it.
The management plan sets the ground rules
Every building or complex under condominium ownership has a yönetim planı, a management plan registered against the title at the Land Registry. It is effectively the constitution of the development: it says how the management is appointed, how meetings are called, what the common areas are and how costs are apportioned. It binds every owner and every future owner automatically. Ask to see it before you buy — it is a registered document, not a private one.
The owners’ general assembly meets
The decision-making body is the kat malikleri kurulu, the general assembly of the flat owners. It meets on the schedule set by the management plan, elects the manager (yönetici) or appoints a management company, and approves the accounts. An owner who is abroad can be represented by proxy. An owner who never attends and never appoints one has no say in a budget they are nonetheless obliged to pay.
The manager prepares an operating project
آن işletme projesi is the annual operating budget. It estimates the year’s common expenses line by line — staff, utilities for shared areas, maintenance contracts, insurance, the reserve fund — and then allocates the total across the individual units. Your aidat is your share of that document. If you have never seen it, you have never seen the justification for what you are being charged.
The cost is apportioned between the flats
Law No. 634 provides a default split, which the management plan can vary. Broadly, certain categories are shared equally between the units while others are apportioned in proportion to each unit’s land share (arsa payı) — the fraction of the underlying plot attributed to that flat and recorded on the title deed. This is why two flats of the same size in the same block can carry different charges, and why the land share on your title deed is worth reading rather than skipping.
The assembly approves — or amends — the budget
The operating project is not final because the manager wrote it. It takes effect through the general assembly, which can approve it, amend it or reject it. This is the point at which owners have leverage over their own running costs, and it is the meeting that non-resident owners most often miss.
Collection, arrears and enforcement
Once approved, the charge is due on the schedule the budget sets, typically monthly. An owner who pays late owes default interest under Law No. 634 in addition to the principal, and the management can pursue the debt through the courts and enforcement proceedings. Non-payment is not a practical form of protest; it is an escalating liability attached to a property you own.
What aidat typically pays for
The exact list depends on the development and on what the management plan defines as common area. These are the categories that appear in almost every operating budget.
Staff
The caretaker (kapıcı or görevli), security personnel, gardeners, cleaners and, in larger developments, a site manager. In many buildings staff costs are the single largest line in the budget, and they carry employer obligations that the management has to fund.
Common-area utilities
Lighting for stairwells, corridors, car parks and grounds; water for irrigation and communal cleaning; power for lifts, pumps, the generator and pool plant. These are billed to the building, not to your flat, and split across the owners.
Maintenance contracts
Lift servicing and statutory inspection, boiler and heating plant, generator servicing, fire systems, water tanks and pressurisation, satellite and entry systems. Recurring contracts rather than one-off repairs.
امکانات رفاهی
Swimming pool treatment and staffing, gym equipment and servicing, sauna and spa areas, tennis courts, children’s play areas, landscaped gardens. This is where the gap between a plain block and a resort-style complex is widest.
Management and administration
The fee of the management company or the remuneration of the elected manager, accountancy, bank charges, insurance on common parts, and the cost of convening and minuting the general assembly.
The reserve fund
A contribution set aside for major works — facade renovation, roof replacement, lift modernisation, repainting. A development with no reserve is not cheaper to own; it is a development that will one day ask every owner for a large one-off contribution instead.
The four recurring costs of owning a Turkish flat
Owners routinely confuse these, and each is set, collected and enforced by a different body. Amounts are deliberately not shown here: they depend entirely on the property, and stale figures are worse than none.
| Recurring cost | Who sets the amount | Paid to | Usually borne by | Blocks a title transfer? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aidat communal service charge |
The owners’ general assembly, through the approved operating project | Building or site management | Tenant for day-to-day items, owner for capital items — the lease should say | نه — but arrears can be pursued against a new owner |
| Emlak vergisi annual property tax |
Fixed by statute and assessed on the municipality’s valuation | The local municipality | The owner | نه — but the municipality enforces the debt with interest |
| DASK compulsory earthquake cover |
Set under the state scheme by reference to the building | The insurer operating the policy | The owner | بله — a valid policy is required to register a transfer |
| Utilities electricity, water, gas |
Regulated tariffs applied by the supplier | The utility company | Whoever holds the subscription, normally the occupier | نه — but unpaid balances follow the subscription |
The practical consequence of that table is that a buyer who budgets only for the purchase price and the property tax has budgeted for perhaps half of what the property will actually cost to hold. In a facility-heavy coastal development, the aidat can be the largest recurring line of the four by a wide margin — and unlike the tax, it is set by a vote you are entitled to attend.
Law No. 7579 tightened the rules on raising the charge
One of the most persistent complaints from owners — Turkish and foreign alike — was that management could effectively set and raise the communal charge on its own, presenting owners with a figure rather than a decision. Law No. 7579, adopted on 7 May 2026 and published in Official Gazette No. 33261 on 22 May 2026, amended Articles 35 and 37 of the Condominium Ownership Law to address precisely that.
Under the amended provisions, where no approved operating project exists, the management must prepare a temporary one — but that temporary budget is no longer the last word. It has to go to the general assembly for approval or amendment within three months, and the owners retain final authority over it. Crucially, where a previous operating project exists, the temporary project may not exceed the previous one as adjusted by the applicable annual revaluation rate.
The effect is to put a ceiling on unilateral interim increases. A management that wants to raise the charge by more than the revaluation-linked figure now has to persuade the owners rather than simply invoice them. The same law also reduced the majority needed to amend a management plan in large residential complexes from four-fifths to two-thirds, which makes it materially easier for a determined majority of owners to change how their development is run.
Law No. 7579 was a wide-ranging statute touching more than a dozen areas of property law, from cadastral corrections to fire safety inspections. We covered the full sweep of it in our guide to Turkey’s 2026 property law changes; this page deals only with the condominium and communal-charge provisions.
Law No. 7579 — Condominium Provisions
What the 2026 amendment changed
Find out what a property really costs to hold
We obtain the operating budget and the statement of account before you commit — not after.
Where to go next
The rest of our library on what owning Turkish property actually involves.
- Property management in Turkey — what running a property from abroad involves month to month.
- Property taxes in Turkey — the annual charges levied by the state, and who has to file.
- Turkey’s 2026 property law changes — the full sweep of Law No. 7579 for owners.
- Apartments for sale in Turkey — how to read a listing and a title deed before you offer.
- Renting out property in Turkey — the rules owners keep missing when they let.
- Tapu: the Turkish title deed — including the land share that drives your cost apportionment.
- Cost of living in Turkey — the wider monthly picture beyond the property itself.
- All Turkey property guides — the full foreign-buyer library in one place.
Aidat and service charges in Turkey — frequently asked questions
The questions foreign owners ask most often about communal charges, who sets them and what happens if they go unpaid.
Ask for the operating budget before you commit
Tell us the property you are considering and we will obtain the approved operating project and a written statement of account from the building management, so you know the real cost of holding it before anything is signed. We work with licensed Turkish conveyancers and management companies.
